


The Bar is Closed, My Arms Are Open

by FromAnonymousToZ



Series: Like a Skeleton to the Flame [1]
Category: Undertale
Genre: -Set up for the rest of this seiese as sans copes with the fact he cant stop the resets, Depression, Grillby is the right kind of friend for sans, M/M, Reader Disgression Advised by author, References to Depression, Sans Remembers Resets, Sans coming to terms with resets, no one else does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: Sans can feel the cracks on his soul, that remind him he's closer to falling down than even his health hints at.Grillby is a good friend, and maybe one day, something more.





	The Bar is Closed, My Arms Are Open

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of a sansby series of mine, each will be from a different reset, all relatively short, (No larger than 75,000 words, but no smaller than 1,000)* based on the relationship between Sans and Grillby. Some can be interpreted platonically like this one, but others will be romantic. I will likely acknowledge depression and self doubt a lot in this series, and remember, since Grillby has very little story, he is sort of OC, in all timelines he was/is involved in a war of some sorts and is one of the strongest monsters underground. For the most part this series will be in chronological order, though you do not have to have read them all for it to make since
> 
> *I may break this rule if I consider making a longer book, but at the moment this is the current standard.

Sans lays there looking at the ceiling. He doesnt need to look at the clock to know that five AM is aproaching, every minuet is like a bell toll in his head, counting down the seconds he hs left to 'sleep'. A phantom pain, a pain from the slash from many timelines on a genoside path aches, he can see the knife if he closes his eyes, so instead he stares at the ceiling, his eyelights glowing dimly.

He can see those blood stained hands, he can see the dust drifting through the air in the golden light from the barrier that streams through the windows. He can still see that smile even as his eyes are open.

The pain flashed across his sternum and ribs. It hurt to force his chest to rise and fall in the illusion of breathing so he didn't, he stilled his chest. All the cracks and chips, from resets past and present burned he could feel all of them at once. A searing pain burns deep in his marrow, ice cold yet burning hot.

He could feel the pain, the cracks in his soul pulsed, reminding him he was far closer to falling down than even his health implied.

So many timelines, and yet he couldn't remember when the last reset was. Was it a week ago, a day, an hour? It all blended together in a mix of dust, blood, bones, somewhere in the pain he could remember the pacifist routes. But it hurt more than any knife when the resets came again and again, even after those vows of peace.

5 AM

Papyrus would come wake him up in an hour, he couldn't bear the thought.

He couldn't get up for Papyrus. His brother was so sweet, but the thought of seeing his brother was making him sick. The memory of Paps' scull under that brown booted foot, shattering it into a thousand pieces of dust haunted his dreams.

Besides just thinking of Paps' voice was giving him a head ache.

Undyne was coming over later, could he bring himself to get up at the thought of her. 

No, she was loud to, and though she would try to help, but she couldn't do anything, he knew that from past resets. It would just make it worse, because she would tip off his brother that he wasn't feeling well, and then chaos would follow as his masks and walls fell.

Alphys, he told her that he would meet up with her later today, could he bring himself to sit up for her? She was quiet at least. But she could not help, perhaps she would understand better than Undyne or Papyrus, but she would panic because she would realize the gravity of the situation and try to help, even though she would realize she would fail. No he couldn't bring himself to sit up for Alphys and her martyr complex.

Toriel flited through his head, the door lady, former queen in this timeline. Could he get up for her? No, Toriel was suffering in her own way, just like her husband, and he couldn't face the pain of getting up, only to have to face her.

No, perhaps it would just be better to lay here.

If he stared hard enough maybe he could even forget the past timelines, brush them off like a bad dream, he could chose not to remember them.

His eye lights glanced over at the clock.

5:24 AM The green highlighted characters said.

He lay there for a few more minuets, images from past timelines raced through his head some painful, some bittersweet, each of them cutting into his soul.

Gaster falling into the void

Flowey's vines ensnaring him

Asriel's crowning

Asgore's death

The first time Papyrus made spaghetti

The first time Papyrus had died.

The first timeline where he remembered a reset

The first genocide timeline he remembered.

Snowdin

Waterfall

New home

The Ruins

Hotland

Slowly the word fire wandered through his head.

Fire, Grillby is made of fire. That thought turned over a few times in his head before he asked himself, can I get up for Grillby?

He paused, Grillby was not loud, Grillby would not try to change what he could not, Grillby would not pity him, no Grillby would listen.

Yes, he could get up for Grillby.

As he raised himself from the mattress his bones shook, the magic between his joints nearly shorting out. He froze, when he had calmed he rose to his feet.

He took a step, he took a shaky breath, ignoring the phantom pain on his ribcage and took another step.

Slowly step by step he made it to door and looked at his sneakers.

He knelt and pulled the left one on.

His hands shook as he started to do the laces and they slipped from his fingers. He tried again, and again they slipped from him.

He clenched his jaw, as best he could with his teeth fused and picked up the laces. He crossed and went under, He made a loop but when he tried to go around he let go of his loop.

His hands shook even more as he tried again.

Under, across, make a loop, around the loop, and pull it tight.

No, that wasn't right it didn't make a knot.

Sans was on the verge of tears, why wouldn't it work?

He tried again, the laces got tangled in his bones.

He tried again.

He couldn't do it.

He let the laces fall from his hands.

He was about to lay down there and cry right then when the fire elemental wandered through his mind again. He stood up, and ignored the sneakers slipping his feet into his slippers.

He prepared to teleport, but the magic wouldn't gather, it was there... but just out of reach, it was like trying to gather enough threads to make a rope bridge, it just couldn't be done.

He reached for the door handle but as soon as his hand came to rest on it he recoiled immediately.

Its ok he reminded himself, its not one of the controls at the core, its just a door handle.

Slowly he eased the door open, wincing as the soft creak of the door shot through his head like an arrow.

Slowly he made it to the door.

Now the easy part was over, the hard part began. Trudging the 76 steps to Grillby's in waist high snow, while convincing himself that in the air was snowflakes, not dust.

One foot in front of the other he reminded himself as the cold bit into his bones, and though it did not pain him because he was a skeleton, it was still a reminder that most sane monsters were warming their couches and cuddling up to their fires.

That's what he wanted to do, he told himself, only his couch was a bar stool, and his fire was Grillby.

By the 39th step he felt he could go no farther, and he slumped down in the snow, ready to weep once more.

The snow floated down in drifts covering him quickly.

How long was he there in the snow though probably only seconds, it felt like eternities.

What did it matter?

Wasted time or not, it was all wasted when the next reset came along.

Grillby.

His name again sent the skeleton to his feet and the skeleton walked yet again.

60 feet through a shadow of doubt crept into his head.

When did Grillby's open?

No. He waved it away, if it wasn't open he would sit on the front steps until it was. 

When he reached the door he nearly collapsed in relief that Grillby was preparing for the day, the sign still read closed, yet despite this the fire elemental held open the door for the skeleton and said nothing of the fact it looked as though Sans had just fought a war, Grillby himself had fought his own, and knew what it was like in the aftermath of each battle.

As Sans hopped up on the stool Grillby walked around the counter polishing a glass.

He turned to the shelves of alcohol arranged by color, going from red on the left to a dark purple on the right, each bottle caught his light and magnified it, it was part of what gave Grillby's its charm. Last night had been rather full, some of the glasses had been misplaced, he now reorganized them and hummed contently, the tone of his humming resembled his voice, lilting an staggering with the crackle of his flames.

As Sans had once described it: ethereal.

Speaking of the skeleton, Grillby turned back to his old friend who had his face down in his arms.

Grillby grabbed a broom from the back and swept out the dust and dropped fries.

He wiped down the tables, and turned on the neon sign.

He polished his glasses, (the ones he wore and the ones for drinks)

Then he walked behind the counter and took out a bottle of ketchup. He walked around the bar and set it in front of his companion and sat down beside him.

Sans peeked over his arms on which his head rested at the fire elemental, and finally, the walls broke. He sobbed magical tears and as the fire elemental pulled him from his own bar stool onto the flame's lap he clung to the fire elemental like a life line.

And as he babbled, 

Grillby listened.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of a sansby series of mine, each will be from a different reset, all relatively short, (No larger than 75,000 words, but no smaller than 1,000)* based on the relationship between Sans and Grillby. Some can be interpreted platonically like this one, but others will be romantic. I will likely acknowledge depression and self doubt a lot in this series, and remember, since Grillby has very little story, he is sort of OC, in all timelines he was/is involved in a war of some sorts and is one of the strongest monsters underground. For the most part this series will be in chronological order, though you do not have to have read them all for it to make since
> 
> *I may break this rule if I consider making a longer book, but at the moment this is the current standard.


End file.
